


the executioner's face (is always well hidden)

by sistabro



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, F/M, Imperialism, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistabro/pseuds/sistabro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At 7:00 PM on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gives a special televised address to the nation and the world, revealing the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. Dean, a Corporal in the Marines, is shipped out to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as part of the large scale reenforcements to prepare the base for attack. Meanwhile Sam, an Air Force Lieutenant fresh from his training as a missileer, finds himself torn away from his fiance, Jessica Moore, and esconsed in an under ground bunker where he holds the launch key to America's deadliest nuclear missiles yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the executioner's face (is always well hidden)

| [Master Post at DW](http://sistabro.dreamwidth.org/12425.html) | [References at DW](http://sistabro.dreamwidth.org/11807.html) |

### MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1962

[Excerpts from President John F. Kennedy's Special Address to the Nation]  
(Listen to the entire speech [here](http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset+Tree/Asset+Viewers/Audio+Video+Asset+Viewer.htm?guid={52C022C0-C9FA-416E-9A1C-AD8BE4D920FF}&type=Audio))

  
Good evening my fellow citizens:

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet Military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base--by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction--constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas… This action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had no need or desire to station strategic missiles on the territory of any other nation.

But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles--in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy--this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil--is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe.

Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately:

First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.

Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. . . . Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified.

Third: It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantánamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis.

Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security… Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.

Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted.

Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction--by returning to his government's own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba--by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis--and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.

Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba. . . . I speak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed--and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas--and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war--the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil.

Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free--free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are--but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high--and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right--not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

Thank you and good night.

——

  
A trail of static-filled silence follows the President's good night to the world, the stunned collective pause to see if what was named will suddenly manifest in a deadly white flash or the dark circular shadow of a mushroom cloud. One breath, two. The magic moment passes, the announcer's voices ring out once more, though tighter edged and higher pitched than before.

Sam, conversely, feels the knot around in his gut unclench for the first time that day. He's never done well in the limbo between of knowing there is something going on, but not knowing what, and he pretty much spent the entire day there. Actual bad news is always better than the suspicion of bad news in his book, less stressful.

The announcers are still talking, the only noise in the living room. Sam's had his fill of bullshit speculation for the day, so he reaches over the arm of the couch to turn the radio off. The click of the knob is gunshot loud, breaking the thrall that has held the rest of the room suspended.

"Well," Margaret says with a sigh, prying herself out of the rocker. "Dinner's not going to make itself, but I think we could all use a bit of fortifying first. Does anyone not want coffee with their whiskey?"

Sam shakes his head along with everyone else and Margaret disappears into the kitchen.

"So, that was quite an announcement," Tom says, settling deeper into the recliner and reaching for his pack of cigarettes. "Though I'd imagine it wasn't much of one to you, Samuel."

Jess tenses, a subtle stiffening of her spine and chest as she prepares to defend him against her father's pointed disapproval. Sam squeezes her arm to forestall her, catches her gaze. She rolls her eyes at him but subsides, starts tracing circles with her thumb on the back of his hand.

"No, Mr. Moore, it was news to me, too. We all knew something was up, obviously," Sam explains with a vague gesture toward the ceiling with his free hand, "but no one knew what. Not even the base commanders, I think."

Tom huffs and it's obvious that he thinks Sam is lying, keeping the military's secrets. Sam wishes he were. His day would have been a hell of a lot less stressful if word of the commanders' obvious confusion at the orders to load up the F-106s with live nukes and rebase them at remote airfields hadn't turned the entire base into a viper pit of wild conjecture. Missiles in Cuba isn't good news, but it's better than half the shit that has been flying around all day. Still, work is going to be hell tomorrow.

"I take it you'll be kept on base until things have calmed down some?" Tom asks after lighting up and taking a few drags and Sam nods.

"Right. Jess'll be needing some help while you're out, then." Tom flicks the cigarette carelessly as he thinks, half of the ash landing outside of the ashtray onto the white doily. "Well, I heard from Pete today that Jim Forkner's—" Jess suddenly goes rigid against Sam, "—back at his folks. Has a new baby on the way so he might be looking for work. Otherwise, there's Bob Crocker—"

"Not Bob," Jess says reluctantly, slowly relaxing against Sam's side. "He's on the bottle again. Sherry said he came by the Longhorn during her shift Friday."

"Jim it is then. If he's already got work, I'll make a few calls."

Silence descends again on the living room, uncomfortable and full of history that Sam doesn't know. He doesn't ask though, files it away for when things calm down. This isn't the first time the small community's history has slithered up to tangle around the present, but it still startles him, the encroachment. Before meeting Jess, the only history that ever mattered was family history; they never belonged to a community that stuck together long enough to form more than the most ephemeral of ties.

It's a relief when Margaret returns, the tray full of steaming mugs held steady in her hands. "So," she says, setting the empty tray beside her as she settles back into the rocker, "do you think you'll have to delay the wedding because of this?"

Sam blinks in surprise and a little bit of guilt; it hadn't even occurred to him. "I'm not sure. We have enough crews that it shouldn't be a problem for me unless things get totally out of hand. As for Dean—"

"Oh, shit!" Jess swears suddenly, bolting off the couch and for the hallway. In the back bedroom a drawer slams. She returns with a piece of paper and a guilty, worried twist to her mouth.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry. Dean called this morning while you were still on duty. He left you this message. I told him I didn't understand it, but he said that you would and that he didn't have time to explain."

Sam takes the proffered scrap of paper and unfolds it. On it, written in Jess's sprawling, blocky handwriting, are four letters: GTMO.

Fuck.

Jess curls back up on the couch beside him, asks, "What does it mean?"

Sam sighs and wraps both hands around his coffee. "It means that Dean's unit has been deployed and that they are going to Gitmo."

"Gitmo?"

Sam takes a sip of his coffee, more grateful than ever for the whiskey. "Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba."

——

  


[Translated excerpt from the personal diary of Soviet Captain Victor Sharkov]  
(Read all available entries [here](http://www.airforce.ru/history/cold_war/cuba/index_en.htm))

  
October 22. Well, it apparently began, no kidding. At 5.00 p.m., we were told that the American sea fleet goes to Cuba to fire against its cities, to attack air bases and other objects. There was no panic, things looked fine, and someone was kidding, apparently, to feel at ease. It took me a second to realize the consequences of the danger coming, unfamiliar cold inside me, the fear, no doubt. I recollected all my life instantly. We got the command to prepare aircraft to full alert take-offs. We filled-up dropped fuel tanks, provided 6 planes of the 1st squadron with two UB-16 unguided rockets pod, 6 others – with two air-to-air missiles. At 7 p.m., the pilots were ready in the cabins. It was all night, total darkness. The MiGs remained along the taxiway in line with an interval of 2 m, as in peacetime. The situation heated up to the breaking point. Heard bell alarm from the city of Santa Clara. The all-clear signal got to us at 9 p.m.

——

  
The base loud speakers sputter out with a final squawk after the President bids the world good night and the percussive hiss of the rain hitting the tarmac is suddenly deafening.

Dean shakes the rain out of his eyes and looks around to see how his men are taking the news. Even through the screen of the rain, he can see their too wide eyes, hunched shoulders, and he sighs. A CO's job is never fucking done.

Plastering his biggest shit eating grin on his face, Dean sidles up to Wilson, his second, and elbows him in the arm. "Guess that explains why they hustled us down here so fucking fast," he says, making sure his voice is carrying. "Nothing puts a fire under the military's pants like nukes. On the bright side, if the shit really does hit the fan, we'll probably be the first to go."

Wilson throws him an incredulous stare before grimacing and giving him the finger. "Fuck you, Winchester. Dying in a nuclear blast is not a fucking bright side… though it'd probably be really fucking bright before we all turned to fucking ash or some shit. Christ, I need a smoke."

"Yeah, smoke 'd be nice," Dean agrees amiably. "Whiskey to go with it'd be even better."

"Oh, fuck yes. Though frankly I'd take being fucking warm and dry right now. Fucking weather."

"Yeah, just our luck to get sent to Cuba during goddamn hurricane season. I fucking hate hurricanes."

"No? Really?" Wilson's eye roll—emphasized by the contrast between the blank whiteness of his eyes and his dark skin—is epic. "I thought everyone loved getting drenched and blown around?"

"Oh, fuck you."

There's a lull and Dean tries to come up with a harmless topic, something to keep everyone smoothed out and distracted. Wilson beats him to it. "Hey, didn't you used to live here when you were a kid?"

It takes everything Dean has to keep the grin on his face, his tone light. "Yeah, my dad got stationed here in '52. Was a whole different ballgame back then, none of this Commie bullshit. Havana was fucking sin city, man. You could—"

"Saddle up, marines!" the LT shouts over the rain, and Dean is more than happy to shut his mouth and shoulder his sodden duffel.

Now that it's out that he lived here before, he's gonna be fucking hounded for stories. Normally, Dean wouldn't mind; he likes to spin a good yarn more than most. But Cuba, Cuba's a fucking knot in his head, good and bad all tangled up, and his normal lies about it won't quite work here. Different crowd, different needs. Dean had been hoping for a little longer to get his head around being back, a night's sleep to chase away the last of the flying jitters, but the march to their quarters should be plenty of time to get everything sorted in his head. He's been lying about Cuba all his life and, as they say, practice makes perfect.

——

  


[Telegram from Soviet Ambassador to Cuba Aleksandr Alekseev to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs]  
(View source [here](http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.document&identifier=5034E01D-96B6-175C-984A9E7CE8C63A35&sort=Collection&item=Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis))

  
TOP SECRET  
Making Copies Prohibited  
Copy No. 1

CIPHERED TELEGRAM

Regarding the threats of the USA toward Cuba, we remain in constant contact with Fidel Castro and Raoul Castro.

The Cuban command gave an order for full mobilization of the army and occupation of defensive positions. Besides telegraphic dispatches of information agencies and Kennedy's speeches, our friends have no other information.

We will quickly inform you of all new facts.

We are taking steps to ensure security and the organization of a duty roster in Soviet institutions.

Please issue an order to the radio center to listen to us around the clock.

22.X.62 ALEKSEEV

——

  
The sound of the screen door slamming shut echoes through the yard, followed by the grate of gravel under approaching shoes. Sam doesn't bother turning around, eyes fixed on the string of the base lights along the horizon and the stretch of stars above.

Jess's fingers slide easily into his and she gazes out into the yard for a moment with him. "Bed?"

Sam squeezes her hand and draws her closer. "Bed."

They take the long step off the side of the deck together, careful not to step on the flowers, and make their way along the side of the main yellow house to the small white house tucked behind it. It's supposed to be for the hired hand, but has become Jess and Sam's instead.

They had painted the exterior siding in September and it shines like sun bleached rib bones in the moonlight, smooth and without blemish. Even now, a month later, Sam still feels the warm glow of pride when he sees it. Not a flake of peeling paint in sight.

But as nice as it looks on the outside, even Sam has to admit, as he shoves the sticky front door open and lets Jess pass with the light, it looks like a piece of shit once you get inside.

Mice had gotten into the fuse box at some point so there's no electricity. Though there is both a bathroom and a small kitchen, there's no running water. The windows leak terribly, enough that they don't dare risk open candles. The linoleum is peeling, the carpet fraying and an ugly, stained, pale pink. The walls are covered with a hideous turquoise wall paper filled with head-sized gold, cream, and pink flowers that look like they could swallow small children whole.

But for all its flaws, Sam's heart always gives a small flutter of pride every time he shoves open the reluctant front door and steps inside. Because even run down and ugly, it still has more soul than the anonymous base housing he had spent his entire life in. It doesn't look exactly like every single other house within four blocks, all painted whatever hideous color the military had decided to buy in bulk one day. It doesn't come with the knowledge that it doesn't actually belong to his family, that it is just a place to be for a year or two until they move to another house just like it a thousand miles away.

No, the piece of shit white house is theirs, theirs for as long as they want it, theirs forever, theirs to build on, build in. Because, despite the lack of water and lights and windows that actually retain heat, the bones of the house are solid; the floors even, the walls plumb and sturdy, the ceilings free of water spots, and the roof without leaks. And with every nail Sam pounds in and piece of carpet Jess pulls up, he feels like they are writing in proof of their existence, of their love, into the very walls. It's a heady new thing, having a home that he can shape and change and mark.

Sam shuts the door and turns, eyes drawn to the beacon of Jess's hair burnished and bronzed by the light of the hurricane lamp. Her face is cast in strange shadows, but the gold band of her engagement ring gleams on the hand she holds out for him. He goes to her, through the kitchen to their temporary bedroom in the living room, chest heavy with love and terror. He gives her his hand and she raises it to her lips for a brief kiss to his knuckles, a benediction and a reminder, too, of when they first met. He steps into her then, pulls her in close until he can feel her along every inch of him, feel the vibration of her heart in his chest, feel that she is safe and alive and whole.

They stand in each other's embrace, rocking slowly in the lamp light, for a long time before reluctantly parting and sliding into bed to cling to each other in a tangle of limbs. Tomorrow they will rise in the darkness. Before day break, she will go to the fields and he will report to the base for duty with no idea of when he'll be allowed to return. But as much as he would like to stay awake and savor the feel of Jess's skin beneath his palm, he put in a hard day's work and sleep takes him quickly, steals away his senses and gives nothing but troubled dreams of fire, blood and ash in return.

### JUNE 1952

  
Dean first saw her beating the rugs hung on the neighbor's clothes line with a baseball bat. Stance prep, timing step, rotation, swing, pivot, contact, repeat. Smooth, tight, precise. He wished half the guys on his new team had a swing that good. Of course, none of the guys would ever look as good doing it; they just don't have the hips and ass. Even under the skirt, it was a site to behold, mesmerizing.

"Jeez, Dean, stop staring," Sam muttered, digging a sharp boney elbow into Dean's ribs.

Dean took a moment to hip check his brother in retaliation and then looked back across the yard. The steady thud of the baseball bat hitting the rug hadn't faltered, but when he aimed his gaze a bit higher, a pair of black eyes were glaring murder at him. Pretty eyes, though, even with the death glare. So he threw a wink and a smirk in her direction and followed Sam inside to make dinner and finish unpacking.

——

  
Two days later, the girl with the beautiful swing was sitting in their living room when Dean and Sam came in panting, sweating and shirtless from their morning run. She looked, slow and obvious, down then up his body, meeting his eyes at the end of her perusal with a smirk more wicked than any he could ever muster playing at the edges of her mouth. His whole body pulsed, blood rushing to his face, his chest, his dick.

Dad walked into the room from the kitchen then, two glasses of lemonade in his hands. He offered one to the girl, who was suddenly as demure as any fairytale virgin.

"Boys, this is Cassie Robinson. She's going to be teaching you Spanish this summer. Cassie, this is Sam and Dean."

"Pleased to meet you, Sam, Dean."

"Nice to meet you, Cassie," Dean said, echoed by Sam, and stepped forward to offer his hand. She stood and took it without hesitation, even though it was as sweaty and disgusting as the rest of him. The calluses on both their palms scraped lightly together as they shook firmly. Dean admired that, liked people who weren't afraid of a little dirt and sweat and hard work. He kept her hand just a moment longer than was proper, then let it go so Sam could take his place.

——

  
"So," Dean said a few days later, sprawling onto the couch next to Sam after the obligatory offer of refreshments had been refused. "You're here to teach us Spanish."

"That's what your father is paying me for, yes." Cassie said slowly, her flat stare clearly conveying that she thought he was an idiot. Dean didn't hold it against her; Sammy looked at him like that all the time.

"Right. So how are we going to do this, then? Cause I haven't unpacked any of our notebooks or school stuff yet."

"I can get it, Dean," Sam said, already poised to jump off the couch. "I know where it all is." Dean rolled his eyes. Of course Sam knew where it all was, the nerd.

"Thank you, Sam," Cassie said with a soft smile for his brother, "but we won't be needing any of that. Your father was very specific about the kind of Spanish you are supposed to be learning, and it doesn't come from books."

Dean sat up a bit on the couch, intrigued. "Okay... so where does it come from then?"

She just grinned, sly and sure of herself, as she came to her feet. "You'll see. Come on."

An hour later, Dean found himself perched on a crate at the docks with Sam on one side and Cassie on the other, laughing so hard he was on the verge of pissing himself. Apparently, Cassie's idea of an appropriate first Spanish lesson was to have the dock workers teach them how to swear. She was practically convulsing with laughter next to him and Dean grabbed Cassie's arm to make sure she didn't fall. She flashed him a radiant grin in thanks, flushed with humor and the afternoon heat, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. Couldn't push the air around the tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with Gil's hilarious illustration of "bailar con los cinco latinos," and everything to do with his Spanish teacher's smile.

### TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1962

  


[Excerpt from incident report filed by Hulman Field, Terre Haute, IN]  
(See References page for source)

  
At 0640, AF Captain D. Gydesen over shot the runway on landing and crashed. The flight was originally supposed to land at Volk Airfield, WI, but had to redirect to Hulman Field due to fog. The shortened runway due to construction and the pilot's unfamiliarity with the field are believed to be the main causes of the accident. Captain D. Gydesen was uninjured and damage to the F-106A appears to be minor. Inspection of the nuclear missiles onboard will have to wait until after sunrise due to inadequate lighting at the crash site.

——

  
One moment Dean is dreaming of Bettie Page with a whip and the next he is out of bed, on his feet, knife in hand and blinking at the darkness and the other Marines who have stumbled out of bed with him.

"What the—" someone starts to ask before a loud explosion rattles the barracks windows and sends them all reaching for a weapon, shoving their feet in their boots, and scrambling outside. Men from other barracks are also pouring into the street, shouting at each other in confusion as more explosions rip through the air.

Dean spots two others from his unit, Rex and Martinez, and bullies his way towards them.

"What the fuck is going on?" Rex shouts at Dean, a little too wide eyed for Dean's taste.

"The hell if I know, come on," he says as he grabs both their arms and tugs them to the barrack's wall.

"Give me a boost up," Dean orders, toeing off his boots and resists the temptation to roll his eyes at the blank look they both give him. Fucking privates. "I should be able to see what's going on from the roof. Now give me a fucking boost."

One assisted pull up later, Dean is scrambling barefoot up the rain slick shingles. The steady drizzle sends cold rivers running through his scalp. He takes a moment to find his balance—because breaking his neck falling off a roof is a shit way to go—then carefully stands up and looks around.

The airfield is on fire, massive, the end-of-Dr.-No kind of fire, orange, yellow, red and full of roiling, oily black smoke. He can vaguely make out people standing around, wavering silhouettes. He thinks they are standing facing the flames, not outward like they would be if this were an attack. Satisfied, Dean starts to turn back to the soldier below when the fire bursts suddenly outward, like popping bubble gum, spitting out debris and punching the air hard enough to bring Dean to one knee for balance, fingers scraping against the shingles for purchase on the wet surface as fake thunder rolls across the base.

"You okay, sir?"

Dean glances down at Martinez's worried expression and pries a hand free to wave him off. Then with a deep breath and a wary eye on the fire, he stands up again, puts two fingers to his lips, and lets loose with the infamous Winchester Whistle—guaranteed to shut you up.

"Leeward Point's on fire. Don't think we're under attack, probably just a crash, but it's hard to be sure from here." Dean takes a moment to scan the upturned faces, picking out the ones he knows have a cool head and can take orders. "Rogers, Perry, Polanski. Take your guys and go see what's going on. Try not to get in the way and send someone back to report. Everyone else, back to your barracks until further orders."

Like magic order starts to form in the milling mass of men below and Dean leaves them to it. He turns back to the fire, unable to resist the spectacle, and wonders who the poor fuckers who died in it are.

——

  


[Translated excerpts from a letter written by Fernando Dávalos to a friend]  
(See References page for source)

  
The mobilization orders came last night, so instead attending classes at the University, I spent the morning marching alongside my fellow patriots. It was beautiful that morning, the shimmer of the sunlight on the palm leaves, the dust kicked up by feet and tires, the blinding glare of the sunlight off the wings of the Yankee planes speeding just above the tree tops as they brazenly spied on us.

In my innocence, I thought the planes were ours or the Soviet's. There on the road, blinded by the sun off their wings, I thought they were ours and I was proud, jubilant even. When I found out later when we stopped for lunch that the planes belonged to the fucking Americans, I don't think I can describe it, my anger, disappointment, shame...

——

  
The jet takes off screaming.

Sam tries to ignore the noise, but the rows of lights beneath his fingers vibrate with the sound and he has to be careful to keep his touch light. Mistakes are not allowed, now even less than before. Soon those mistakes will matter, carry terrible weight and consequence, so it's best to make perfection rote, the norm and not the aberration.

Rote perfection is something Sam is very good at. A skill, happily, that was not bestowed upon him by his father. John Winchester is very good at many things—shooting, soldiering, drinking, and being a bastard—but the retention and application of minutiae is not one of them. John and Dean both, whose minds move in leaps and twists via mechanisms strange to Sam, have always been impatient with the details that Sam so lovingly gathers, shuffles and strings together to form webbed pictures of the world. Sometimes it's the same picture as his father's and brother's; more often it's not.

But as much conflict as Sam's relentless collection of facts has caused within his family, it has granted him even more success outside of it. The Air Force Academy doesn't take just anyone, and graduating in the top two percent is nothing to scoff at, contrary to his family's opinion. It has landed him in a position fresh from the Academy that usually required captain's bars, which, despite how morally distasteful he finds the job, is still an honor.

Another take off rattles the board beneath his hand. Sam frowns as his finger inadvertently nudges the wrong button. Like every other part of his body, Sam's hands are too big. As proud as he is of his intellect, Sam would trade it all for Dean's stature in an instant. Because, though Sam can more easily slide his mind into the accepted frameworks of academia, Dean's no dummy, and, unlike Sam, he can fit into a cockpit, could fly if he wanted. Flying was the only reason Sam chose the Academy over Stanford, chose to put up with the military bullshit for another eight years. All he ever wanted to do was fly away with a sonic boom, fly so fast that the shouting could never reach him. But his body has betrayed him, grown up into a giant, and left on its own, Sam's mind has led him here, to a small room in a base near Rapid City, South Dakota, staring at a board of lights, practicing how to launch nuclear missiles. Practicing how to help blow up the world.

——

  


[Translated excerpt from the personal diary of Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Valentin Anastaseiv]  
(See References page for source)

  
Today I watched my soldiers torment a large fish they captured yesterday, a barracuda I believe the natives call it. Somehow they managed to secure a rope around its belly and were dragging it around Batista's swimming pool. Though I didn't put a stop to their juvenile entertainment—there is little enough to do in this cursed country—I must admit I felt a certain kinship with the poor thing. Our situations are somewhat analogous.

Like the fish, I have been removed from my native environment through no choice of my own and placed in a far inferior one. Both of us are vulnerable to outside enemies, the American's and Cuban rebels in my case, a group of bored soldiers in the barracuda's. We are both also in possession of impressive but ultimately useless weapons: for the fish, a set of teeth that—due to other biological constrictions—it cannot use to free itself; for myself, a lovely half dozen nuclear gravity bombs, that—due to a lack of IL-28 bombers, appropriate orders, and any desire to blow myself up—are stuck in a cinder block and tin roof bunker secured only by a pad lock and completely lacking any sort of environmental controls or proper perimeter fence.

Of course at this point my analogy falls apart and I become, instead, more similar to the mighty elephant, in possession of mighty weapons that are also highly coveted by our enemies. (If there is a market for barracuda teeth, I have never heard of it, but my wife has a lovely ivory comb that cost me more than a few rubles.)

In short, my pistol never leaves my side, everyone sleeps lightly, and if either the Americans or the rebels find us, we will be both toothless and dead.

——

  
The identical houses of Guantanamo Bay are all half-empty boxes, full of things undone but missing the people to do them.

Dean walks down one side of the quiet suburban street, his patrol partner mirroring him on the other. A big golden retriever the color of dark honey barks as Dean approaches its home and he veers in that direction, combat boots crunching in the half dead grass. The dog pulls at the yellow leash tied to a porch rail, tail wagging as it prances from side to side. It's a beautiful animal. Even though they've been told not to get too close, Dean walks right up and lets the dog jump up and slobber on him in greeting.

"Hey, boy, that's a good boy," he croons, scratching behind the floppy, silky ears.

The dog drops back down to all fours and, one hand still scratching industriously, Dean scans the yard. Food, water, shade, all present and accounted for. With a final pat, Dean walks back out to the street, pulling the map of the base out of his pocket and marking the house with a D. Tomorrow someone else will be by to check again, but for now, everything's fine.

Dean continues down the street, eyes scanning the yards for other abandoned pets. He isn't sure, but he thinks this might have been their street, that one of these empty houses had once been full of him and Sam and Dad and all the things that followed with them. He doesn't think he could find it anymore, though; he so rarely revisits the many cut-out homes of his childhood that it never seemed worth it to remember the particulars. Dean doesn't really wants to find it anyways, the house that held them when everything started to fall to pieces.

From one house, Dean catches the fading scent of cooked tostones and licks his lips, a hollow forming suddenly in his gut. Maybe if there's time, he'll make them for his squad some night. It seems fitting; in one of the houses along this road, he learned how to cut and salt the green plantains, fry them, smash them, and fry them again. Cassie had spent an afternoon teaching him, made him make batch after batch while Sammy, scrawny and always hungry then, had sat in the kitchen and devoured nearly every one, laughing every time the grease jumped the pan and burned Dean's hands. But no matter how many tostones Dean made, Cassie's were still better, crisp and light and salty and sweet. Sam had been so stuffed by the time she finally consented to make a batch to show him how it was done that Dean had hardly had to fend his brother off at all, able to take his time and savor each piece like it deserved. Maybe tonight he'll dream of her, of the impossibly delicate filigrees created by her dark curly hair spread out across his pillow when they kissed lazily in the hot afternoons. Maybe he'll dream of the warm weight of her dark breast in his hand, or how they nearly laughed themselves sick when she tried to teach him sappy endearments in Spanish.

He wonders if their paths will cross again, now that Dean's back in her stomping ground, but puts it aside to concentrate on the job at hand. If it happens, it happens, he'll deal with it then. Ahead, another dog starts barking.

### SUNDAY, MAY 17, 1953

  
"This," Cassie said with a dismissive flip of her finger, "is Havana."

She said it like the Americans, nasally and hard, all the grace leeched out of the name. Looking around from their spot in a little corner café on the Malecón boardwalk, Dean understood for the first time since they'd arrived in the city two days ago, how different Havana was from La Habana. Havana was made up and manic, beautiful, graceful, a fruit just turned from the peak of ripeness. All glitz and glitter, Havana had no substance, couldn't match the deeper rhythms of the rest of the city, the places for living instead of passing through.

Dean wasn't sure yet exactly why he was here, why only he and not Sam could come to the capital with her. Just that she wanted him to understand something, and was going about explaining it in her usual way, in tangents and spirals and sidesteps. It drove Dean nuts sometimes, how Cassie never laid it all out in nice straight and easy lines. But mostly he liked the challenge of trying to follow the circles of her thoughts, the satisfaction of all the pieces suddenly coming together, the puzzle transforming from a single picture on a plane to a mosaic on a cube or a pyramid or a sphere.

The difference between Havana and La Habana was a part of it though, and even Dean could see how the metaphor applied to Cassie. He'd spent the past two days listening to her mother and sister and old friends and neighbors call her Casandra, Sandra, Casita, anything but the name he knew her by. Cassie was for Americans and soldiers and tourists, for him until she told him otherwise.

Right now, though, Cassie wasn't saying anything at all, hunched over her coffee and refusing to look at him. Dean let her be, set his gaze to wander the street and the crowds of tourists, idly looking for anyone he recognized from the base. Instead he thought he saw Cassie's sister, Marta, come out of one of the hotels. He wasn't positive it was her—the sleekly beautiful tight black dress the woman wore wasn't what Marta had left the apartment in—but Dean could see her face, was pretty sure.

"Pienso que su—"

A hand closed viselike around his wrist and Dean's mouth snapped shut. He turned to look at Cassie and nearly recoiled at the intense and unfathomable expression on her face.

"I know," she said. "Just… watch, okay. Don't say anything, or wave, just observe. Discretely, por favor."

Dean replaced his wrist with his hand, gave her fingers a soft squeeze and did what she asked.

He didn't have to watch for long. Marta hadn't even finished her cigarette before a tall blond man, rich judging by the cut of his suit, came out and sidled up beside her, slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her in, possessive, arrogant. But what clued Dean in wasn't the man, but how Marta transformed as he approached, went from a tired woman having a smoke to a seductress, the change too fast to be anything but artifice, a show. They passed the cigarette back and forth, kissing when the snubbed it out, and then the man dragged Marta back inside, like he owned her.

Dean stared at the hotel and felt sick, dizzy with the disconnect between the beautiful, proud and funny woman he had spent the last two days with and what he had just witnessed.

"Dean. Mirame. Look at me, Dean."

He turned, slowly, feeling like his spine had fused and fossilized, and looked at her, searched her face and eyes and body. Saw fear and determination and shame and love and a cold, old anger and didn't know what to do with any of it. She had just given him a terrible gift, her trust, a secret not just her own. But Cassie already had Dean's trust, knew all his secrets, could pry them out of him with ease. He had nothing of equal value to give in return, and she knew it. But still he could see her waiting for him, and he didn't know what for.

Circles and spirals and tangents, sometimes a straight line was better. "Why did you bring me here, show me that?"

Cassie frowned at their joined hands and Dean waited patiently as she ordered her thoughts.

"It's hard to explain," Cassie said, starting slow but building speed. "But, well, there's that saying, the one with the beds…You've made your bed and now you have to lie in it. It's sort of like that. So some people say that Marta made her bed, she chose to…to do what she does, so she doesn't have a right to complain about it. Marta hates whiners, so she would probably even agree with them on that. But, what if the only things you can make your bed with are rocks or, or other people's garbage. What if…what if someone stole all the good stuff—the feathers and cotton and whatever else you make beds out of—someone stole it all and they're stronger than you, so you can't steal it back. And since they're stronger, they can make you make more of the good stuff so they can steal that, too. So all you have are rocks and garbage to make your bed with. Which means your bed will always be a crappy one and it isn't your fault at all. "

Cassie looked up then, deliberately meets his eyes. "That's why I brought you here, what I wanted you to understand. Because I don't want my sister and mother to have to sleep in crappy beds anymore, and I don't think you want them to either. You're a good man, Dean, and I know you've seen things in Cuba that you don't like. I want to change those things, but I don't want to do it alone if I don't have to—not that I won't, mind you, but it'd be nice to have someone to do it with."

"You want me to help you kick the American's out of Cuba?" Dean asked hesitantly.

"Oh, no," Cassie said, quickly. "Not that at all, or at least, not yet. I was talking about Batista."

"Huh," Dean said, ran through everything he knew about the dictator: every Cuban he'd ever talked to loathed the man; he was greedy and corrupt; he was a bully and a dick and it wasn't hard to see how the people suffered for it. He looked at Cassie and couldn't deny he loved her, loved her passion and her courage and her heart. He didn't want her to change the world without him, didn't want her to be alone and unprotected. He didn't want to miss out on the excitement either, if he was honest with himself.

In the end, it was an easy decision.

"Yeah, I'll help. Batista's a dick."

Cassie's smile was radiant. He couldn't resist, leaned over and kissed her until his back started to protest the awkward angle. Dropping back into his chair, he squeezed her hand, which hadn't left his for the entire conversation and asked, "So what's the plan?"

### WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1962

  


[Excerpt from transcript of 10:00 AM Executive Committee meeting at the White House]  
(See References page for source)

  
**Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara:** This is a new procedure I had them set up yesterday, Alex [Johnson].

Here is the exact situation. We have depth charges that have such a small charge they can be dropped and they can actually hit the submarine, without damaging the submarine. Practice depth charges. We propose to use those as warning depth charges. The regulations that Alex is talking about state that, when our forces come upon an unidentified submarine, we will ask it to come to the surface for inspection by transmitting the following signals using a depth charge of this type and also using certain sonar signals which they may not be able to interpret. Therefore, it is the depth charge that is the warning notice and the instruction to surface.

**President Kennedy:** If he doesn't surface or if he takes some action...to assist the merchant ship [the submarine is guarding], are we just going to attack him anyway? At what point are we going to attack him?

I think we ought to wait on that today. We don't want the first thing we attack as a Soviet submarine. I'd much rather have a merchant ship.

——

  
The grating buzz of the Primary Alerting System phone sends a collective twitch through the men gathered around the half assembled communications console. They have been trained to answer that phone immediately, to gear up and get ready to possibly wreck utter havoc on the world. Even though Sam knows it isn't launch orders—that would require functioning missiles—just the sound of that phone is enough to ratchet up his heart rate, newbie though he is.

Major Corrin picks up the phone and puts it on speaker. They wait for a few moments, but not long. All the other missile crews at other bases have been trained to be just as twitchy, and they have all been warned to expect the call.

"This is General Power speaking. I am addressing you for the purpose of reemphasizing the seriousness of the situation the nation faces. We are in an advanced state of readiness to meet any emergencies, and I feel that we are well prepared. I expect each of you to maintain strict security and use calm judgment during this tense period. Our plans are well prepared and are being executed smoothly. If there are any questions concerning instructions which by the nature of the situation deviates from normal, use the telephone for clarification. Review your plans for further action to insure that there will be no mistakes or confusion. I expect you to cut out all nonessentials and put yourself in a maximum readiness condition. If you are not sure what you should do in any situation, and if time permits, get in touch with us here.

"Gentlemen, the Strategic Air Command is now at DEFCON 2. You have your orders."

The call ends abruptly with a click and the faint hiss of static on the line before the Major shuts everything down. "Well, I hope the Soviets are shitting their pants after listening in on that. Fucking ballsy move, transmitting that in the clear. How the hell Power got authorization for it is beyond me."

"I still stuck at DEFCON 2, man," Riley says. "This is fucking insane, just...pure fucking insanity."

"Maybe it is," Corrin says. "But we have our orders and these boards aren't going to assemble themselves. Let's get back to it. Malmstrom's already got a half hour lead on us. And I want time to triple check everything before we go live. We really don't want a repeat of our last test, now do we?"

"No, sir," they all say, Sam and Riley and Lou, all of them wincing. If a missile actually had been hooked up to the controls when they had fired up the consoles in the last test, there would be a new crater in the South Dakota plains. It's an idiotic idea, bringing the Minuteman systems online when, because they are only half finished, they have to bypass almost all of the safety measures, make circuits and wires go where they aren't designed to just to make things work. Frankly, Sam will be a little surprised if, between them and Malmstrom, the nuclear apocalypse doesn't get started by accident.

——

  


[Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Turkey]  
(View source [here](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba056.asp))

  
Washington, October 24, 1962, 11:24 a.m.

For Ambassadors Hare and Finletter from Secretary. Soviet reaction Cuban quarantine likely involve efforts compare missiles in Cuba with Jupiters in Turkey. While such comparison refutable, possible that negotiated solution for removal Cuban offensive threat may involve dismantling and removal Jupiters. Recognize this would create serious politico-military problems for US-Turkish relations and with regard to Turkey's place in NATO Alliance. Therefore need prepare carefully for such contingency order not harm our relations with this important ally.

Urgently request Ambassador Hare's assessment political consequences such removal under various assumptions, including outright removal, removal accompanied by stationing of Polaris submarine in area, or removal with some other significant military offset, such as seaborn multilateral nuclear force within NATO.

Ambassador Finletter also requested comment standpoint NATO aspect problem. Do not discuss with any foreigners.

Rusk

——

  
Dean wipes a filthy arm across his brow and wishes for a breeze to clear the air. Heat waves ripple across the asphalt, the stench of burnt chemicals, metal and asphalt sticking in his throat and sinuses, wrapping a tight band of pain across his forehead. Around him the wreckage forms a stinking, festering tangle of charred, twisted, shredded metal, rising abruptly from the flat plain of the runway. Men haul debris away to nearby trucks. They look like leaf cutter ants, the irregular sheets of metal bobbing above scurrying feet. He thinks he sees two of his squad drop their piece and feels a brief stab of guilt.

Normally cleanup isn't in any of their job descriptions. But most of the engineers and heavy equipment are off building up the base defenses. The one resource that is in plentiful supply are infantry grunts, who, when given proper direction and applied in sufficient numbers, can move debris almost as quickly as an engineer with a bulldozer. It's probably Dean's fault that his squad got drafted for the onerous duty instead of any of the hundreds of others that have filled the base near to bursting. Some pencil pusher somewhere noticed that Dean's list of skills includes welding, learned working construction and as an auto mechanic during the years between graduating high school and waiting for Sam to do the same.

In the distance, the bell of lunch starts ringing and Dean's stomach rumbles, Pavlovian. From his perch on the top of a section of the plane, he can see the men start to head out and briefly considers packing it up to join them. But he is close enough to finishing that it isn't safe. Wouldn't do for some poor private to get squashed. So he puts the mask back on, adjusts the flame, and gets back down to work.

Showers of light, like a child's sparkler gone mad, fill the tiny, square window of Dean's vision. The light show is beautiful, comforting. He likes the visual confirmation that a tool can be more than its task, its purpose. Likes that no matter how carefully and precisely the torch is wielded, there will always be sparks. In some other life, Dean thinks he could happily have been a welder.

But welding didn't occur to Dean as a career option when he'd had to make that call. Still reeling from Sam's expected departure and his Dad's totally unexpected one, Dean had given into his first bitter reaction to being abandoned by his family and joined up with a new one. A family that—unlike his real one—wants to keep him in it.

The Marines have been good to Dean; he has no regrets about enlisting. But he wishes his first reaction when Sam had called a few months back to ask Dean to be his best man hadn't been surprise. Surprise that his little brother had found a girl in bumfuck South Dakota, surprise that he wanted Dean there at all. He hadn't been surprised though when Sam had asked if Dean knew how to get a hold of their father, no more than Sam had been when Dean had said he didn't. Pity that it doesn't look like Dean is going to be able to make the wedding anymore, though maybe Sam will have to postpone it anyways. He hopes so; he's been looking forward to seeing his brother again. Six years apart is too long.

With one last check that no one is too close, Dean finishes the circle he has been cutting out of the plane. He carefully crawls down to the ground, puts his tools away. Then he grabs a crowbar, climbs back up, and starts prying the out piece he cut. Finally, the circle of metal comes loose enough for gravity to slam it into the ground, leaving Dean looking into the plane and right into a dead man's blackened, empty eye sockets.

The crowbar slips from his hands and Dean almost tumbles after it before he manages to catch himself. For a moment, all he can do is stare, swamped by an intense feeling of relief. Not just because he isn't in dead like the poor bastard below him, but that the fuckup that caused the crash didn't manage to cause a war. All it would have taken is some dick in authority thinking that the crash had been caused by an attack. Instead of just seven men dead, there could have been hundreds, thousands, maybe millions with the nukes thrown into the mix. It only takes one idiot in the long, complex chain that puts the President's orders into Dean's hands to fuck it all up.

People had been professionals though, kept their heads, thank Christ. And Dean should do the same, tear his eyes from where the dead man's should be and go ruin everyone's lunch. Because a man is dead, a Marine, and even if they never met, Dean still knows what he owes, knows that this man would do the same for him if their situations were reversed. Because that's what family does.

——

  


[Translated excerpt from a status report for Soviet Colonel Ivan Sidorov's regiment of R-12 missiles]  
(See References page for source)

  
…targeting cards and technicians arrived on schedule. Major Oblizin reported hearing gunshots while on the road, but they were very distant and pose no threat to the regiment.

After Oblizin's arrival, the men successfully brought the missiles from Readiness Condition 4 to Readiness Condition 2 within the allotted time. I am confident that should the orders come, they will be able to do so again with no trouble.

I concur with your conclusion that the Americans have spotted the current launch site and we will be moving to the reserve position as ordered.

### FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1953

  
When Dean had said he wanted to go to the Carnaval de Santiago de Cuba with Cassie for a long weekend, Dad had demanded that he take Sam with. Sam hadn't even had to break out the whining or puppy dog eyes or anything. He could tell Dean wanted to protest, tell he was unhappy about it, but both of them knew when they could push their dad and then wasn't it.

So they packed for a few days and crammed into Dad's car for the long ride out of the base, north to the town of Guantánamo, west to Alto Songo and then south into the city itself. Usually car trips with Dean were fun, but both Cassie and Dean were quiet and snippy. He knew they hadn't wanted him around, but it's not like Dad was his fault.

They arrived Friday night, the whole town already well into the party, loud and bright and reeling. It took forever for them to get to the hotel; Dean got lost twice in the maze of narrow streets and they kept having to wait for the roaming drum and dance groups—congas Cassie called them—to pass by.

After they checked in, Dean and Cassie locked themselves into the bathroom and had a whispered hissing argument that, try as he might, Sam couldn't quite make out. Eventually he gave up and went to read on the bed, which is where they found him when they finally emerged.

Dean looked unhappy, like he was sucking lemons. Cassie just looked worried. When the silence had stretched for far too long, she finally elbowed his brother and gave him an impatient look.

"Sammy," Dean said after a grumpy sigh. "Here's the deal. Tomorrow, Cassie has a couple of errands to run for her abuela and a few other folks. We're going to be running around, mostly away from the carnaval and talking with old people."

Dean was lying to him, Sam was sure of it, trying to protect him like he was some kind of baby. It was infuriating, but there really wasn't much Sam could do about it. Dean would just deny it and give him a wedgie or something.

"So you're going to be on your own, but I think you can handle it. Go explore, have fun and try not to get mugged. You got your knife?"

Sam nodded. Of course, he had his knife. For one, Dad insisted on it and for another, it was a pretty awesome knife, which a calf sheath and everything. He wasn't allowed to tell anyone about it, but just having it made Sam feel just a little bit cooler.

"Good. Keep it on you, but don't be stupid. We'll meet back at the hotel for dinner. Do you have any money?"

Sam shook his head.

Dean sighed again. "Of course you don't. Why would you?" Dean muttered as he dug out his wallet and riffled around in it. "Here, this should tide you over. It's all your getting, so don't spend it all in one place."

Sam accepted the cash and tucked it into his pocket. Tomorrow it would go in his sock. "Thanks, Dean."

"Yeah, no problem. Now get ready for bed. We're getting up early tomorrow."

### THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1962

  


[Transcribed excerpts from proceedings at the United Nations Security Council]  
(Watch [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSV9_J8Csts&feature=related))

  
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Aldai Stevenson: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed, and is placing, medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no—don't wait for the translation—yes or no?

Zorin: You will receive your answer in due course. Do not worry.

Stevenson: I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that is your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.

——

  
It's past midnight and the rec room is half lit and empty. Sam's slow footsteps echo off the linoleum as he crosses the room towards the phone. He just got in from the site, exhausted and fuzzy headed from a fourteen hour shift and the hour long nap on the drive back. He should be, wants to be, needs to be in bed, has another day at least as long looming for tomorrow.

But he'd already arranged for Jess to wait up for him. Snuck a personal call out from the LFC to set it up. And there are things she needs to know about that really can't wait.

Jess answers before the end of the first ring with a low, soft, "Hey, Sam."

He closes his eyes to hear her better. "Hey, Jess."

They indulge themselves in the mundane for a time. Jess tells him about the weird string of cattle deaths making the rounds, the heifer she found dead in the north pasture. Sam relates Riley's latest disaster in dating. But even though it feels like forever, they've only been apart a few days. They just don't have enough new small talk to put the inevitable bad news off for long.

Jess is the one that finally brings it up. "We're going to have to cancel the wedding, aren't we?"

"Postpone it, but yeah. There just aren't enough people. I'm going to be working twenty-four hour on and twenty-four off for who knows how long." Sam yawns. "I can probably get the off shift for our wedding if we really want. But there's no way Dean will make it and I'd rather not be dead on my feet on my wedding day. You deserve better than that."

"We deserve better than that," Jess says firmly. "I suppose on the bright side, we'll have more time to make more flowers. Did you find the one I sent with you?"

"Yeah," Sam says, and pulls the origami lily from his breast pocket. "I have it right here."

"You haven't opened it yet, have you?"

"No, sorry. There just hasn't been time. I'll open it in my bunk tonight."

"Do. But speaking of bunks, you should probably find yours. It's late. We both have to get up."

"Yeah, I know. Love you, Jess."

"Love you, too. Sweet dreams, Sam."

He hangs up, and has to sit there for a moment before he can gather the energy to move. Sam shuffles off to his assigned bunk room, empty but for him, and sits down to open Jess's lily.

More than a month ago he had folded the same type of flower and placed in its heart an old gold band with a diamond chip picked up in a pawn shop in Rapid. He wishes he could have given her something from his family, something with history, but there is nothing. The Winchesters have no heirlooms. He thinks she had been more impressed with the paper flower than the ring anyways.

They had gone to the Reptile Gardens on a lark in late September and Jess had been enthralled by the flowers in the Sky Dome. At lunch, Sam had snagged a piece of paper and she had watched with a childish awe as he squared it off and began to fold. She had never seen origami before. He had been carrying the ring in his pocket for weeks, waiting for the right time and he knew that was it. With a little sleight of hand, he had slipped the ring inside the paper lily, gone down on one knee and proposed. She had said yes, kissed him, and then promptly demanded to be shown how to make her own flowers.

She had become fascinated by the art; every week Sam would bring paper and a new design to fold. She insisted that all their flowers for the wedding be made of paper, so he had started with lilies and roses, tulips and columbine, lady slippers and orchids. They had shoe boxes filled with them, tucked away at home.

It had surprised him, at first, her love of origami. It seemed far too tame and domesticated an art for someone as windswept and fierce as Jess. But he thinks he understands now, the appeal of something frivolous and beautiful in a world that has very little room or patience for either.

He remembers being told to take a week's leave in late spring to come help brand. The whole community had decided it was time to do the rounds and Sam spent his first few days on homesteads he had never seen before. Jess had given him a fifteen minute run down on how to properly throw and hold a calf and then teamed up with her for the first few hours of utter chaos. Cowboys on horses with ropes flying, bawling calves, hot irons, bloody knives and vaccine guns. They had stuck to grabbing and restraining the calves, each taking whichever end was closest, knee to the neck and the foreleg curled under or on your ass in the manure with one back leg pulled straight in your hands while your extended leg keeps the calves bottom one away and immobile. A callously horrifying tableau with the stench of burning hair and skin and horn, the slippery slick of balls cut loose and dropped in buckets for frying later, the quiet snick of the vaccine gun, the buck and strain of terrified animals beneath your hands and legs, the shocked wobble of the young animals as you let them up and herd them back outside the corral to find their mothers. Hours of it, smooth as clockwork, a factory of ownership and blood and pain.

The first day, it had been all Sam could do to keep up and not get in the way, not get kicked too bad or burnt. The second day though, he had noticed that Jess was one of the only girls that threw down and held or cut balls. The few other women present mostly did the vaccines with the occasional hold as needed. Mostly, the women would come to the fore when the blood had been washed off and lunch was being served. The first time, Sam had been in no state to help with anything once the last calf had fled the corral. But the second time, he had washed his hands and followed Jess into the kitchen, asked if he could help. He wasn't a great cook, but he could chop and stir and fry with a fair amount of proficiency; Dean had made sure of that. But all he had gotten was a round of incredulous stares and then laughed out of the room.

It had baffled him, but Sam was a child of many, many moves so he did what he always did when thrown into a strange environment, observe and try to be invisible. What he saw made him want to bash heads. The men teased him good naturedly in the corrals and at the dinner table, he was the new guy, the outsider, it was to be expected. But what they said to Jess, there was nothing good about it. Bite and vitriol and derision, that was what filled the words sneered behind her back or to her face from men and women alike. When the time came to do the Moore's calves near the end of the week, faces that had shown up at every single other branding were missing. Many came, but it was clear that this was Jess's show with her father out with a bad knee and it surprised Sam how much it seemed to grate. He wasn't an idiot, he knew a lot of men had problems with women working outside of the home, but the all the women here did work, often did the man's job and then their own. The margins were too thin to turn down any labor you could get, even if it was a woman's. The only difference he could see between those women and Jess was that she did more of the men's work than the women's and that, at the Moore ranch, she gave the orders and expected to be obeyed—they were her cows after all. What had baffled him was the feel of the resentment, old and rotten, when it was obvious that Mr. Moore was in no condition to be giving orders of any sort. It had taken him longer to realize that Jess gave the orders all the time, even with Mr. Moore there. She was the only child, the heir, and it was pretty obvious from the coldness between her and all of the men her age, that they resented her intrusion into their world.

Hard life, hard place and for Jess, a hard mantle to put on. No wonder the simple folding of paper is so enthralling, art in sips of time where she can shuck off the roles of cowboy and cowgirl and just be herself, taking joy from making something beautiful out of nothing.

Sam unfolds the flower, careful of the creases. A thin bit of tumbled quartz falls out. The paper reads, "It's a worry stone. Rub it to take your worries away. Love you babe."

Sam rubs his thumb along it, and tucks it away for tomorrow. He thinks he's going to need it.

——

  


[Excerpt from photo intelligence report from the 25 Oct 1962 low-level reconnaissance mission over Cuba]  
(View References page for source)

  
The missiles lines up in the photograph fit the dimensions for the battlefield nuclear missiles commonly known as Lunas. The Luna rockets can deliver a 2-kiloton nuclear warhead up to twenty miles away. The blast radius for that size payload is approximately 1,000 yards. Initial launch time according to past intelligence is approximately 30 minutes, with a 60 minute reload time. Next to the Luna missiles are a squadron of T-54 tanks which…

——

  
The cacti form a towering tangled wall of limbs grasping for the heat hazed sky. Dean stares out at the so-called Cactus Curtain and tries to place the landmarks now masked by the spiny wall. Dad used to make them run sniper drills, practice sneaking in and out of the base, and by the time they left, he and Sam knew all the secret paths and gullies and blind spots around the perimeter. It's useless knowledge now, for between the barbed wire and the spines is a deadly garden of mines just waiting to blossom in a shower of dirt and blood and bone.

There is movement in the cacti and Dean tenses, rifle coming up half mast, his patrol partner's gun only a second behind. A man, a soldier, steps out beyond the shelter of the cacti arms and stops, staring at them, hip cocked and cocksure. Without thought, Dean raises his M14, licks his lips to see if he can get a better gauge of the wind and runs the logistics of the shot through his head. He doesn't have his good scope, there is the chain link to consider, and it's skirting the reliable range of his rifle, but, so long as the wind behaves, a solid chest shot. Maybe not the heart, but John had trained his sons in the cold practicalities of murder. The first lesson: ego has no place on a battlefield. You take the shots you have as best you can and you don't waste time trying for a perfect head-shot in the heat of battle when a chest shot burst will do just fine. Splintered ribs and shredded lungs may take longer to kill a man, but—despite what the movies try to tell you—a man busy dying is usually not much of a threat. He has more important things on his mind, like not being able to breathe or the state of his eternal soul, than shooting at you.

Dean's index finger caresses the outer edge of the trigger guard, eyeing the soldier across the minefield. "Bang, you're dead." A lie, but it makes him feel slightly better. He knows when he's being mocked and the young soldier across the minefield is definitely mocking them. He is also being an idiot and Dean finds a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that, should a war come to pass, that particular Cuban soldier would probably not survive it. He lowers his weapon and Ferguson does the same.

"Fucker's spying on us."

"Nah, just some dude on a dare from his buddies to go wave his ass at the Yanquís. Ain't nothing interesting about a couple of grunts like us." Dean knows better than anyone that all the real spies in Gitmo are the ones the Marines let in the gate each day to clean and cook and perform any number of menial tasks required to keep the base running. Crisis or no, he saw the stream of Cuban workers trickle through the checkpoints this morning. Fences with open gates don't keep secrets and Castro knows exactly what is going on in old Guantánamo.

### SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1953

  
The next day, Sam was careful to wear the dullest clothes he brought with. They didn't even have breakfast together before he was turned loose. Sam played his part, headed off towards the city center. He turned the corner and waited for a few minutes. He wasn't stupid. He knew Dean and Cassie were up to something, had been up to something for weeks now, and he wanted to know what.

So he waited. When he was pretty sure they wouldn't be looking for him, Sam peeked out from behind his corner. Coast was clear. He headed down the street in the other direction at a slow trot, the kind he could keep up for hours. The streets were stupid, worse than Japan even, so it took him a few wrong turns before he caught sight of his quarry. After that it was easy. Dean was too busy trying not to get lost to pay proper attention to his surroundings. Dad would have chewed him out for sloppiness had he been there.

They walked for a long time. Sam was pretty sure Dean got lost at least twice, but he wouldn't put it past his brother to do it on purpose to make him harder to follow, make it harder to guess his destination. When his quarry finally slipped into a building, Sam bought himself some mango slices and a found a corner to set up watch in.

There was a man on the roof, watching the streets. He wasn't very good at it, kept standing up and showing his silhouette. Sam was pretty sure he could take him out with a rifle. Dean and Dad definitely could, no problem, maybe even without the scope.

Sam amused himself for a while fixing up the building's defenses. Positioning imaginary snipers on the roof across the street to control entry into the building, sticking a lookout at the back to watch the alley. Really, just one more person would improve the security tremendously, even Sam could see that. And if Sam could, then Dean definitely could. He should tell them how to fix it. Better yet, Dean should let Sam help. He knew Sam could keep watch for hours, Dad had made them both do it often enough. Sam could be a messenger or a sniper or, even better, a spy. Sam would make an awesome spy. Who would suspect a kid like him of anything? Certainly not some dumb old Reds.

Eventually though, the spy game got old. Boring. Dean obviously wasn't coming out any time soon, and enough was enough. It was Carnaval. With one last look at the building and a cheeky wave at the watcher on the roof top, Sam retraced his footsteps, headed back towards the city center, the distant rhythms of the conga lines leading the way.

### FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1962

  


[Excerpt from the perimeter alarm report for Duluth Airport, MN, filed on 26 Oct 1962]  
(See References page for source)

  
Perimeter alarm sounded at 1203 local time. Duluth alarm triggered other regional alarms in the Midwest and Canada. Several pilots started dispersal procedures before the alarm was called off. Duluth perimeter breach presumed to be from a bear. Clarification of procedures for perimeter alarms should be sent to all air fields.

——

  
Dean freezes for a moment as the palm tree sways in a strong, sudden breeze, checks his balance and that the machete's edge is away from all his important bits. Below his squad watches, shouting encouragement and insults, their gaping mouths and upturned faces making them look like hungry baby birds. Dean looks out at the base while he waits for the tree to settle again. It's harder to see the changes from so high, the missing the civilians, the harried Marines. It could be ten years ago, but for the absence of Sam and Cassie waiting for him below.

When the swaying reaches acceptable levels again, Dean continues hacking at a bunch of green coconuts with the machete. Gravity takes hold suddenly and the cluster plummets, hitting the ground with a series of dull knocks that are quickly followed by more shouts and whistles.

Careful not to cut himself, he makes his way down the slender trunk with his thighs and bare feet, his free hand mostly used for balance. It has been a while since Dean last did this, so he goes slower than he once would have as a fearless boy. If growing older has taught him anything, it's that he is infinitely breakable.

When he is safely on the ground again, Dean raises the machete dramatically to another round of hoots, whistles, and hoo-rahs. Grinning, he motions for Wilson to give up his cigarette, plucking it from his friend's hand when he doesn't comply. Wilson glares at him half heartedly, gives him the finger. Dean just smirks before taking a few deep satisfying inhales, letting the heat pool in his lungs.

"So," he says once the noise has died down, "consider this a practical lesson in tropical survival. These suckers are baby coconuts, and inside is something that can save your life, agua de pipa or coconut water for you English-only speakers. Now, you already saw the first step, which is to haul your sorry ass up a tree with a machete and cut shit down. Only cut down the green ones. Mature coconuts are only good for eating and that ain't what we're after on a fucking hot as hell day like today."

He takes another drag and walks over to the bunch of coconuts. "Next, break one off. Again, machetes are fucking helpful, particularly if they are sharp, so keep them that way if you get your hands on one." He squats and starts to twist and chop one of the coconuts free. "Interesting fact that could save your buddy's life, you can use coconut water as a saline replacement. Inject it right into the vein if shit has really gone FUBAR and you're out of the real stuff. Good for severe dehydration and it'll keep blood volume up in a pinch." The hard green fruit comes free and Dean absently tosses it up and down with one hand as he looks for a good place for the next part of his impromptu demonstration.

A mailbox sits on the corner just a bit a ways. Dean heads towards it and places the coconut on top. "Now, the first step is to hack off the top. It's nice to get a couple thin slices from the outer husk as they make the best scoops for the meat once you've drained it dry and crack it open all the way." He demonstrates with a few quick slices, the smooth outer green husk falling away in small thin circles and revealing the pale woody interior.

"Then you just keep going, smallish chunks though or you'll waste a lot of the water." The machete flashes quickly, the little chunks of pulp start to make a small pile on the ground, until Dean felt the sudden splash of wet over his fingers as the liquid under pressure inside suddenly finds an outlet. He rights the coconut and leans the machete against the mail box.

"And there you have it, agua de pipa, best fucking drink there is on a hot day. Any questions?"

"Who gets the first one, sir?" Reese calls out.

"I do, you lazy fuck." He proves it by tucking the cigarette between his fingers and raising the coconut to his mouth. The woody pulp is rough against his lips, but the warm, slightly sweet juice that sloppily pours out is the taste of endless sunburnt barefoot summers.

"There're the coconuts, here's the machete, don't cut off any fingers. And don't forget we're on patrol at 1800." He receives a chorus of hoo-rahs and a wave of sloppy salutes. He salutes back with the coconut, spends a moment hunting for the best scoop in the pile of discarded husk pieces, shoves his feet back into his disgustingly steamy boots, and heads out. Dean's a good squad leader; he knows when the guys need to fuck around without him there. Wilson will keep them from doing anything too stupid.

Dean had seen a park around the corner when he was up in the tree and decides it's as good a destination as any. His bootlaces skip and scrap across the blacktop as he wanders down the street. Two blocks later, the dusty diamond of a baseball field comes into view, the rest of the park unfolding behind it.

Dean plops down on the first bench he reaches, slips off his untied combat boots and sprawls. He tries and fails to blow smoke rings with the last few drags of his stolen cigarette before hitting the filter and snubbing it out. He takes a few swallows from his coconut. A woman slides onto the bench beside him.

"Hola, Dean."

"Hola, Cassie."

He offers her the coconut without turning and feels her lift it from his hand. His closes his eyes and listens to her swallow, imagining, remembering, the long column of her throat as she tilts her chin back.

They sit for a time in silence. Dean can smell his skin starting to burn, the heat sinking in and making his face tight. He should put on a hat, but he's not quite sure where his is. The sunlight paints bloody pictures through his eyelids.

"Pareces cansado," she says.

Dean grunts in agreement; he is tired, weary. It has been a long week on little sleep and lots of worry.

"Mirame, Dean."

He sighs and obeys, cautiously opening his eyes and angling his body towards her on the bench. She is even more beautiful then he remembers, a woman now in full, tempered and polished by time and hard choices. He reaches out and gently brushes a stray curl from her cheek, tucks it behind her ear.

"You look good, Cassie."

She smiles at him. "English, then?"

He shrugs. "It's been a long week and I'm out of practice. Besides, your English has always been better then my Spanish."

"Mmm, Sammy always had a better ear for it then you."

Dean growls in mock indignation, though it is true, and takes the coconut from her. The sunlight gleams off the metal on her finger. He drinks then says, "Felicidades."

"Felici—?"

He taps his ring finger.

"Ah, gracias, though honestly, it still feels a little unreal sometimes, like I'm living someone else's life. Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and my son, but I never imagined I would grow up to be…respectable."

Dean looks at her skeptically.

"Well, almost respectable," Cassie concedes. "I think I will always be a little bit of a revolucionista at heart." She laughs then, short and bitter, but genuinely amused, too. "Do you know in town, they call me una puta imperialista?"

Dean snorts in disbelief. "You? An imperialist? Hardly."

Cassie grins at him, all white teeth and irony. "All of us, they call us all imperialists and capitalism lovers because we work here. Mostly, I think they're jealous. You norteamericanos may be imperialistic, greedy, land-stealing, vindictive bastards, but you do pay well and on time. Not many others do these days."

"Revolution didn't go off quite as well as it could have, did it?"

She laughs, brilliant and clear and unfettered for the first time she sat down and Dean finds himself laughing with her. He remembers her at eighteen, full of sharp rhetoric and so much fury and passion. She challenged him in every way imaginable, his spirit, his ideas, his ideals, his place in the world. When they had fought, it had been World War III—though the make-up sex had almost always been worth it—but when they were on, it was like magic. For a while, before things fell apart, she could subtly shift the world around him just a fraction to the left and make it all new again.

"But enough about me now," she says once they've calmed down. "What about you, Dean? Is there a pretty girl with your heart wrapped around her finger waiting for you?"

"Nah," Dean says, keeping his tone light. "Haven't managed to find anyone dumb enough to put up with me yet."

"Liar. You're a good catch. Too handsome for your own good maybe, but I think when you're ready, the girls will be waiting and plenty willing—"

"Oh, I really hope they'll be willing," he cuts in with his best leer.

Cassie punches him in the arm, hard. "Plenty willing to put up with your crap," she finishes, then steals the coconut for another drink.

When she passes it back, her gaze is somber, weighted with guilt. "And Sam? How is he? Is he still…?" Her hands flutter uselessly, then fall to her lap.

Resentment surges up his throat like bile, and Dean swallows it back down. He can never forgive her for the part she played in what happened to Sam, no more than he can ever forgive himself. But she had loved Sam, too. Put up with all of Dean's bullshit, fueled by his guilt and anger and fear, because Sam had needed her. Dean, he can admit now, had needed her, too, back then; there hadn't been anyone else. Unforgiven though she may be, Cassie had earned her answer a long time ago.

"It got better once we left," Dean says once he's got himself back under control. "I think not being here and reminded all the time helped. When he left six years ago—managed to get into the Air Force Academy if you can believe it—the nightmares were only happening every couple of months. That was it as far as I could tell. I haven't seen him since, but he's supposed to be getting married on the tenth. I was going to take some leave, fly up, be his best man, but I'm thinking that's not happening anymore. Fucking Commies and their fucking nukes."

"Fucking Soviets and their fucking nukes," Cassie says, bitter and angry. "They're just as bad in their own way as you Yanquís. By the time the two of you are done, there won't be a Cuba left."

"You haven't changed a bit, have you?" Dean says, a fond smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

She flushes. "No, probably not. No more than you have."

A clock sounds the half hour somewhere to the east and Cassie swears, stands up. "I have to go, I'm already late. But it was really good to see you again, Dean. I'm glad I found you and I'd like to find you again tomorrow, if that's all right with you?"

Dean stands."It's plenty all right with me." He kisses her cheek. "It's been good to see you, Cassie."

She gives him the same smile he fell in love with all those years ago. "It's been good to see you, too, Dean. Tomorrow then."

"Tomorrow," Dean echoes, then sits back down to enjoy view, the swish of her hips under her skirt, as she walks away.

——

  


[Draft communiqué from Fidel Castro to the Secretary General of the United Nations]  
(See References page for source)

  
Cuba does not accept the vandalistic and piratical privilege of any warplane to violate our airspace, as this threatens Cuba's security and prepares the way for an attack on its territory. Such a legitimate right of self-defense cannot be renounced. Therefore, any warplane that invades Cuban airspace does so at the risk of meeting our defensive fire.

——

  
As the senior crew, Corrin and Riley take the first alert. So long as he is back on the base by seven, Sam is free to do want he wants. And what he wants is Jess.

He pulls up the drive at sunset, and the orange dust kicked up by his care looks radioactive, poisonous. The sky is so big after being stuck underground for the past few days it makes him dizzy, so he doesn't look. Focuses instead on the up and down of Jess's ribs as they embrace.

Sam drifts through super, a subdued affair of pot roast, potatoes and silence. He can't quite settle. It's like he has bees under his skin. He barely notices the Margaret's attempts to draw him into a conversation.

It's habit more than anything that makes him help clean up, and when he finishes, Jess is standing by the door, her arms full of blankets and jackets, staring at him.

"What?"

"We're going for a ride," she announces and walks out the door.

Saddling the horses calms him down a little and Sam can feel himself start to come down from the tension high. He tightens the girth, fixes the stirrup, and rests his forehead against the saddle, the smell of leather familiar and soothing; it reminds him of Dean. Jess comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist, and just holds him for a while, until Betsy shifts her weight.

"You with me, babe?" she whispers in his ear.

"Yeah," Sam breaths, shivers, a whole different kind of buzz starting to form beneath his skin. Jess nips his earlobe and goes to mount up. Sam beats her to the saddle.

Both Sam and Jess know better than to run the horses in the dark, even on such a familiar road. So they let the horses set an easy pace down the steep road to the creek. To the southwest, the lights from the airfield form a string of glowing pearls along the horizon, the mundane polished pretty by distance. He allows himself one long look , before turning his full attention to the horse and road below him.

They follow the creek upstream and soon enough even the faint glow of the yard light by the house disappears. Stars limn the flat topped hills and Sam's heart swells with the old familiar awe, the tight anxiety slipping from his chest. For the first time all day, Sam feels like he can breathe, so he does, a big, noisy inhale that he huffs out slowly just to see the faint cloud of his breath.

"Feel better, now?" Jess asks.

"Yeah." Apparently, sex is the bait, not the purpose, of their little ride under the stars. It's a little frightening, sometimes, how well she knows him.

Ten minutes later, they cross the creek, tie the horses to a convenient tree, gather the blankets, and begin the trudge up the small flat-topped hill that is their favorite make-out spot on the whole ranch. In addition to being far away from everything, it's too steep for haying or the cows to bother with, so instead of sharp, two inch high grass stems intermixed with cow shit, the hill has a lush growth of waist-high prairie grasses that, with a bit of effort, make an excellent cushion underneath a blanket.

Panting slightly at the top, they walk to about the center of the hill, bumping elbows, shoulders and hips. Dropping the bundle of blankets to the ground, Sam scoops Jess into his arms, grinning like a fool, and drops them into the grass to start rolling it flat in a laughing tangle of limbs.

A dizzying while later, breathless from laughter and desire, Sam rolls them to a stop, pulling Jess on top of him. For a moment she hangs suspended above him, cocooning them in her hair before diving down for a deep kiss. Sam's hands come up automatically to cup her face, fingers catching in her hair while their tongues touch and twine together. Sam closes his eyes and lets her take the lead; happy to just kiss and run his hands over the skin he can reach under her clothes all night long.

He loses himself in the hazy buzz of a really good make-out session until Jess breaks the kiss to grind down hard on his groin, wringing a groan out of him.

"You are such a sap, Sam," Jess whispers in his ear, smiling wickedly as her hips make slow circles over his dick. "Here I am, all ready to get down and dirty and, if left to your own devices, all you'd do is kiss me all night. Tsk. It's a good thing it's not just up to you though, isn't it?"

He hums in agreement and sits up, squeezing her breast through her shirts with one hand. "Blankets first, or else there'll be grass in unfortunate places."

She harrups and stands straight up with an easy flex of her calves and thighs and hips and reaches down to pull Sam up after her. They lay out their cocoon in the grass and then strip quickly; it's too dark to bother with a strip tease. Sam kneels first and tugs her down into his lap for more kissing, lets his hands roam over the smooth muscles of her back.

His feet start to fall asleep so he tilts and rolls until he is leaning above her, still kissing, one hand wandering to tug at a nipple. He can feel her faint moan as the air between their mouths vibrates and he does it again. She retaliates by sneaking a hand between them and squeezing his cock. He slips his hand down to finger her, her hips buck at the touch, and finds her wet and warm. Jess pants his name impatiently, but he lets his hand linger for a moment, enjoying the slick feel of her hot around his fingers, the urgent twists of her body.

Suddenly, Jess breaks their kiss and bites him hard on the collar bone, just barely short of drawing blood and he involuntarily bucks into her hand at the new sensation.

"Stop teasing," Jess hisses in his ear and rubs her palm over the head of his dick. Sam doesn't need to be told twice, shifting to line things up and slowly pushing into the tight wet warmth of her body.

She cradles him then, arms and legs curling around his back as he presses into the briny heat of her again and again and again in a steady rhythm. Sam shifts slightly and she quakes, gasping, neck arching, eyes squeezing shut. He ducks his head, mouths at her throat, salt and earth and Jess mixing like promises on his tongue.

Jess moves below him, puts a foot to the ground and pushes, trying to roll them over. Sam obliges, rolling until he can feel the grass etching hash marks into the skin of his back through the blanket. The edges of the world disappear in the shimmering silver veil of her hair as Jess leans forward to kiss him, hungry and deep. Then she arches back onto him, tall, strong, beautiful, the Milky Way an arrow of stars aimed straight for her heart as she takes them both to the edge and over into the white free fall of orgasm.

Jess collapses forward, a heavy comfortable weight on his chest. Sam manages to summon up enough coordination grab the discarded blanket and throws it over them before snaking his arms around her, palms sliding through the slick sweat on her back.

They lay there, gasps slowly turning to measured breaths, while fingers idly trace patterns in each other's flesh. A sudden flash of lightning makes them both start, almost immediately followed by another stream of white light. It's unseasonably late for electrical storms, but if nothing else, this crazy week has taught them to savor the unexpected windfalls that come their way, so they lay together, side by side and enjoy the show.

——

  


[Message to the Soviet Defense Minister from General of the Army Issa Pliyev, commander of the Soviet forces in Cuba]  


  
To the Director [a pseudonym for Rodion Malinovsky, the Soviet Defense Minister]

According to intelligence data available to us, the U.S. has identified several of the deployment sites of Comrade STATSENKO [chief of Soviet missile forces on Cuba]. The U.S. Strategic Air Command has issued an order for the full military alert of its aviation strike force.

In the opinion of the Cuban comrades, we must expect a U.S. air strike on our sites in Cuba during the night of Oct. 26-27, or at dawn on Oct. 27.

Fidel Castro has decided to shoot down American war planes with his anti-aircraft artillery in the event of an attack on Cuba.

I have taken measures to disperse tekhniki [euphemism for nuclear warheads] within the operating zone and to strengthen our camouflage efforts.

In the event of American air attacks on our sites, I have decided to use all air defense means available to me.

Pavlov [official pseudonym for Pliyev]

——

  
Sam jerks awake with a convulsive gasp, panting in the darkness, trying to blink away the terrible after images of his nightmare.

"Babe?" Jess mumbles beside him, clumsily patting him arm.

The knot of fear from the nightmare finally loosens at her touch. "I'm fine," Sam manages after a few shaky breaths. "Go back to sleep."

And he is fine. Because Jess is right here, safe, buried under the blanket, not bloody and burning and dying. It's just stress, nerves for tomorrow, the first time he'll have a launch key around his neck.

But in spite of how many times he tells himself that, it is a long time before he falls back into an uneasy sleep.

——

  


[Translated and decoded excerpt from a supply request from Major Denischenko to General Pliyev]  
(See Reference page for source)

  
During transport one of the trucks ran off the road, two soldiers and one bystander are dead. Despite the delay, the convoy reached the launch site before dawn and set up of the missiles has commenced as planned. We believe the Americans are still unaware of our purpose and full capabilities. No unusual activity has been spotted within the base nor has word come from the Cuban spies working there. However, in order to stay on schedule, we will need additional supplies to replace those damaged in the crash. I have outlined our needs below.

### SUNDAY, JULY 26, 1953

  
The sun was hours from making an appearance when Sam woke up. He didn't start though, kept his breathing soft, slow and even—just like Dad had taught him—while he tried to figure out why he was awake.

Cloth rustled by the bathroom, and Sam tensed. Someone was moving around in the room. He kept still though, waiting, and was rewarded when a brief whispered conversation a moment later identified the mysterious someone to be his brother and Cassie.

He kept still, quiet, his body loose, his eyes closed. Something was going to happen, something they wanted to keep from Sam. Whatever they had been up to yesterday, this was connected, this was the payoff, he just knew it.

So Sam stayed still and quiet, breathed soft and slow until he heard the door latch snick shut, the creak of footsteps in the hall, on the stairs. Then he was up in a flash, reaching for yesterdays clothes, his sneakers with their quiet soles.

Sam ran out of the room and down the stairs to the foyer. At the door to the street he paused, cracking the door slightly to peek out, see if he could spot Dean without giving himself away.

Even though the streets were mostly empty, Sam almost missed them. Both were dressed in the drab olive of the Cuban militia with heavy looking packs on their backs. Cassie was in pants with her hair tucked up, Dean with a cap covering his distinctly blond hair. But Sam had been following his brother around for his whole life. Even in disguise, Dean couldn't hide his bowlegged swagger and that was all Sam needed to pick him out.

Sam waited tucked behind the hotel door until they turned the corner. Careful not to let it door slam when he slipped out, he jogged down the street, taking up the chase.

For a long while, all Dean and Cassie did was walk deeper into the city. If they had a destination, Sam couldn't fathom it. Then, suddenly, they stopped, tucked themselves against a wall, unslung their packs, and settled in.

Sam found a door stoop with good sight lines and hunkered down to wait, muffling a yawn behind his hand.

Sam heard the car before he saw it, the chug of the engine bouncing off the buildings. Dean and Cassie grabbed their packs, stepped out from the wall and almost into the street. The car, a jeep full of people in army uniforms, pulled around the corner, stopped in front of the pair.

Dean and Cassie handed off their packs to the people in back, who passed them around. The bags were passed back empty. Sam wasn't sure what had been in them, he was too far away and the light was bad, but if he had to guess, he'd say guns. It made his stomach twist and churn. Whatever Dean and Cassie were doing, Sam was suddenly very certain that they shouldn't be doing it, not at all.

Eventually, the jeep and Dean and Cassie parted ways and Sam let out relieved sigh. He never would have been able to keep up with a car. Dean and Cassie were walking fast now and Sam picked up the pace a little, wishing he wasn't so goddamn short still. The sun began to rise.

When the sound of gunfire cut across the parakeet calls—and Sam had fired enough guns in his life to know the difference between gunshot and a firecracker, no problem—Dean and Cassie both broke into a run. Sam sprinted after, careful not to catch up but closing the distance between them some, the only reason he could do so was because Cassie was slowing his brother down.

Dean and Cassie disappeared around a corner and Sam broke into a sprint, gunshots still ringing out, closer, more frequent. He rounded the corner onto a main street and straight into utter chaos.

Sam had his knife in hand without even thinking. He didn't have a clue what was going on other than a whole bunch of shooting and screaming and Cubans running around, but it was his job to have Dean's back and as much as he liked Cassie, he knew she wasn't up for it. Sam moved in closer, ducking and weaving like he had been trained, trying to catch up to Dean.

He almost didn't make it.

### SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1962

  


[Exceprt from CIA Memorandum on The Crisis, USSR/Cuba, Information as of 0600, 27 Oct 1962]  
(View source [here](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621027%20The%20Crisis%20USSR-Cuba.pdf))

SUMMARY CONTENTS

I. Based on the latest low-level reconnaissance mission, three of the four MRBM [Medium Range Ballistic Missile] sites at San Cristobal and the two sites at Sagua La Grande appear to be fully operational. No further sites or missiles have been identified.

II. The mobilization of Cuban military forces continues at a high rate. However, they remain under orders not to take any hostile action unless attacked.

Steps toward establishing an integrated air defense system are under way. On the diplomatic front, Cuban representatives are trying to plant the idea that Havana would be receptive to UN mediation. They indicate, however, that a prerequisite must be "proof" that the US does not intend to attack Cuba.

III. Despite Khrushchev's declaration to U Thant that Soviet ships would temporarily avoid the quarantine area, we have no information as yet that the six Soviet and three satellite ships en route have changed course. A Swedish vessel, believed to be under charter to the USSR, refused to stop yesterday when intercepted by a US destroyer and was allowed to continue to Havana.

IV. No significant redeployment of Soviet ground, air or naval forces have been noted. However, there are continuing indications of increased readiness among some unites. Three F-class submarines have been identified on the surface inside or near the quarantine line.

——

  
Sam rubs his hands together and huffs on them in attempt to warm them up. Between the cold and the tension, they are starting to cramp, tendons pulling tight in his palms and fingers. The heater has been on the fritz for the past three hours and the temperature has plummeted in the underground room. The rest of him is warmly ensconced in his winter gear, but with the three missiles that they've managed to get hooked up constantly coming on and off alert and the occasional need to hunt down a short in the hastily wired circuit boards, there isn't any point in putting on gloves. He can't keep them on long enough to do any good.

Needless to say, Sam's first alert tour as a missileer is not going particularly well.

About the only thing that has gotten better since Sam walked through the blast doors and strapped a pistol on his hip are his nerves. Sure the system is still held together with wires, spit, and a whole lot of prayers, but after the first few times he had to bring a missile online and the thing didn't blow up, he's more or less calmed down. Reached that plateau where he is just stressed enough that he's a little sharper, a little more careful, but nowhere near falling to pieces. About where Sam expected to be, actually, if his first alert had been on a system that was complete and tested and not constantly breaking.

The sudden whine of the printer makes Sam jump a little. He expects it to cut out after a few lines, to be just another test of their on-again-off-again communication systems with the base. It doesn't, keeps going, line after line. Sam scoots his chair over to take a look.

It's a message from SAC, new safety procedures. Sam reads them twice before handing it off to Lou, who pretty much sums up Sam's reaction with an explosive, "What the hell is this shit?"

"A half-assed death sentence for the tech crews, near as I can tell," Sam says, dead serious, furious.

The new orders are a prime example of the higher ups not thinking things through and making everyone down the line pay for it. They look reasonable enough on paper, a fail safe way to ensure there are no unauthorized launches even with the jury-rigged systems. All SAC wants is for the steel lids over the silos to be disabled. If orders come in, the technicians simply reconnect the explosive charges and the lid blows out of the way so the missile can launch. If the launch is unauthorized, the technicians don't receive orders to fix the lids and the missile blows up in the silo. Simple. Except for how it really, really isn't.

Sam had been lucky enough to see a test launch while he was in training, and the span of destruction around the site from the rocket fire had been impressive, awesome even. The technicians, Sam's friends, will have minutes at best to get the fuck out of the way. SAC may as well have sent their death warrants and he's pretty sure his superiors don't even realize it.

——

  


[Excerpt from report on accidental U-2 flight into Siberia]  
(See References page for source)

  
…flight engaged in routine air-sampling operations, assigned to an area normally 100 miles away. Instrument failure caused it to go off course and recall efforts did not succeed. Soviet fighters scrambled for intercept, but the U-2 was at too high of an altitude for intercept to be successful. .

——

  
News of the U-2 shoot down moves through the base like a tsunami, leaving hard mouthed soldiers in its wake. The details come later—that the pilot was Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., that he left behind a young widow in Florida—but any additional damage they do is minor. The first shots have been fired by the enemy, one of their own was killed, that's all most of the Marine's think they really need to know.

Dean thinks of the dead man's eyeless gaze when he hears about the shooting. He wonders what name that soldier went by when Anderson's name makes its way down the grape vine. Two American planes have gone down over Cuba this week. Seven men died in the first, but because it was an accident, no one seems to remember at all. One man dies in the second, shot down by the enemy and the base turns into a powder keg.

Dean figures that it really doesn't matter that much, the how. Dead is dead. And the way things are shaping up, whether it's by accident or an attack, a whole lot more death is headed their way.

——

  


[Translated excerpt from the diary of Senior Lieutenant Vadim Orlov onboard Soviet submarine B-59]  
(View source [heare](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/asw-II-16.pdf))

  
I can barely see to write this, there are only emergency lights, the batteries are nearly depleted. One of the duty officers has just fainted. I think the CO2 is too high, or maybe the heat. It must be 50C in here. The constant explosions from the enemy depth charges make it worse, so loud that we can hardly hear each other or think. Like sitting in a metal barrel constantly being blasted with a sledgehammer. It has been like this for hours and the headache is vicious. I'll never complain about winter again.

Big explosion! I think that's it I think we're done, they've found us for sure. Captain is shouting the war has already started, we're going to blast them...

——

  
The alarm sounds out, a shrill, pulsing warble that echoes strangely in the concrete box of the Launch Control Center.

"Skybird this is Dropkick with a red dash alpha message in two parts. Break. Break."

For a moment, neither Sam nor Lou move, just blink, nonplussed. Then Lou gives himself a shake, an old hand at this from the Titan crews, and says, "Stand by to copy message."

"Standing by," Sam says, and tries to let his training take over, lose himself to its relentless mindlessness. He knows he can, he's done it before, shut his mind off and let the smoother roads endless hours of repetition have paved in his head detour around his fear and doubt and horror.

Sam watches his hand smoothly copy down the letters and numbers spewing from the speaker. He tries to focus on the movement of his fingers and wrist and arm, but it isn't working, the clarity won't come.

The voice stops, his pen drops. Sam blinks, the consol light blurring, the world starting to slip away sideways. He can smell dust and heat and gunpowder, see the glare of the sun off the white stucco when he blinks, and he knows what this is. It hasn't happened in years, not since he left for the Academy. But Sam can feel it build, feel the past rising up to swamp him, and he can't do this now. He needs to be here, has to be here. So he bites his tongue, bites it clear through, hopes the pain will anchor him here even as the flood of blood in him mouth pulls him back—

Men are screaming, and running, fleeing the sharp staccato pops of machine gun fire. He can't see Dean. A man collapses in front of him, his blood spraying in a mist, his face stunned and pained and terrified. The fine red droplets landing in Sam's open mouth as he screams Dean's name.

—his fingers twirl the combination lock, once, twice, thrice, then eleven, two, four, click. Sam works the lock free and flips the outer lid of the steel lock box, revealing another safe, another lock within. Lou's hands reach in, his fingers are trembling—

Sam veers away, around the dying man. The taste of dusty pennies fills his mouth. He still can't find them, Dean and Cassie, can't see them until suddenly the sea of panicked men parts, just for an instant, just long enough to make his blood run cold.

—have authenticated launch orders, do you copy?" Sam says into the phone cradled between his shoulder and cheek.

"Copy, Delta-one. Crews are reconnecting the explosives now."

"Roger, that. Good—

Never give a rookie a machine gun, Dad always says and now Sam knows why.

In the center of the plaza, a man is screaming, frothing, trying to shoot at the men wisely staying in the cover of their high white walls. He's oblivious to how the recoil is turning him away from his target, how his fire is drifting out into the plaza, steadily making its way to where Dean and Cassie are hunkered over a downed man, without cover and clueless.

—lights flash as Sam throws the switches to arm the missiles, counting them out as he moves down the line. "Two, three, four, five—

He stops thinking and lets his body lead, lets the patterns learned in countless hours of drilling take over as his knife slides into his palm, familiar and comforting. Sam runs, his momentum becoming part of his attack. Helps him knock the man away from Dean while he blade slides in past cloth and skin and flesh towards the kidney under the phantom guidance of his father's hands. The body stiffens but doesn't fall, so Sam kicks it in the knee, brings it down to his height so he can get the gun, can't leave it loose or Dad will tear him a new one. But the body twists and Sam nearly loses the knife, slick now with sweat and blood, so he pulls it out, brings it around and across the throat just like he's practiced a million times on Dean. The body twitches, stills then drops.

—on two, release on five," Lou says.

"Roger," Sam acknowledges, his arm outstretched, fingers tight around the key in the wall.

"One, two," they turn their keys, like starting a car. "Three, four—

Sam cuts the gun free of the tangled straps, wipes the blade on his pants before sheathing it and seats the gun in his shoulder like he's been taught. He stays low, looks for some cover, looks for his brother and finds him still hovering over a body with Cassie. Sam shouts again. This time Dean hears him and turns. Then Dean is running for him, Cassie pulled along behind. Sam automatically positions himself to cover them, fires off a few short bursts.

—this is Skybird," Lou says into the phone to SAC, his voice scratchy and hoarse like he's been screaming for hours. "Successful launch of Delta-two, three, four, five and six confirmed. Requesting—

Dean and Cassie are almost to him, when Dean stop so abruptly that Sam thinks for an instant that he's been shot. But his brother doesn't fall, just stands there, staring at the ground. Sam tries to look down, see why they are standing around in the middle of a fire fight, but he can't, the very idea of looking there filling him dread. Then Dean looks up, his face so twisted and terrible that Sam doesn't know him, can't see his brother in this weeping man staring at him in utter horror. So Sam looks down because he can't aim the gun without looking and whatever was capable of putting that look on his brother's face, Sam's pretty sure it needs to be shot.

He looks down and sees a dead man where a body once was. The world lurches sideways and Sam suddenly feels sick. He drops the gun, his hands shaking too badly to hold it. Nothing feels real, right. There are pennies in his mouth and his hands are red and sticky and there's a dead man at Dean's feet and he doesn't understand what is happening. So Sam does what he always does when nothing makes sense. He looks at his brother.

"What did I do, Dean?" he asks, only that wasn't what he meant to ask, not at all, but he can't seem to say anything else, not when Dean picks him up and runs, not when they scurry into a corner to hide from the soldiers, not when Dean oh so gently presses a hand over his mouth because they need to be quiet. He can't stop the steady mantra that tumbles out, over and over. "What did I do, Dean? What—

—did we do?" Lou says into his hands and starts to weep.

Sam blinks, cold and dizzy, disoriented by the echo between the past and the present.

His tongue is throbbing and his mouth tastes like pennies.

Sam barely makes it to the toilet in time.

### November, 1962

  
The world is full of lightly blowing snow and ash, a gray, grimy, gritty haze that makes the world look like it has been transplanted to a black and white television with bad reception. The six of them all look like strange bi-pedal insects with their face masks and goggles. The air hisses and whooshes as Sam breathes and the mask his hot and moist against his heavily bearded face. Still, he feels freer, looser than he has in what feels like forever. After spending nearly three weeks in a ten by thirty cement cylinder with ten other men, even this cold hazy wasteland is an improvement. At least he can move.

The plan is to scout a rough perimeter—go an hour out, get some radiation readings, walk back—while the remaining five see what's salvageable in the above ground portion of the facility. There are three vehicles in the parking lot, but no one wants to get back into a box of any sort. Not yet. Silently they check their watches and start walking. Sam is the tallest, has the longest stride, so he gets the south road to the highway.

The gravel is slimy with ash, shifting and surprisingly treacherous. If the road had not been raised, it would have been hard to distinguish it from the burnt, snow dusted remnants of the fields on either side. The only thing he can see that isn't old cinders is the LFC on its pad of cement.

Everything Sam had ever read about surviving nuclear attacks always focused on the cities, where the fallout was the greatest danger; things were generally less flammable and fires would hopefully be controllable with enough people around to douse the small conflagrations. But in the plains at fall's end, there is nothing but things to burn: dead grass, hay bales, barns, windbreaks, desiccated barns, long abandoned farmsteads. He can see it, first the flash and then the fire, everything lighting up twenty miles out from ground zero, maybe even farther. Some of the flames might have been blown out by the following shock wave, but not enough. Not anywhere near enough.

Jess died gasping and burning, most likely. Surrounded by burnt desolation, Sam can no longer pretend otherwise, no more than he can deny the cold logic that says Dean is also dead in the inevitable nuclear attack against Guantánamo. Their absence is a well drilled in his heart, slowly filling with pain and rage and grief. Someday, some hour, the poison waters there will rise and overflow, but for now he holds tight to the dry empty hollowness in his throat, the dusty coating on his tongue, and does not go near.

For the first time, Sam understands why his father reenlisted to fight in the War. Why John abandoned his children to go fight through the tangle of mangled screaming bodies and climb the distant bloody slopes of Guadalcanal and Okinawa. Why he schemed and lied and bullied and charmed to be allowed to keep his enlistment, even though, as a widower with two dependents and no other family to speak of, all logic, all decency would say enough, desist, stop trying to orphan your children.

The camaraderie of soldiers is a powerful thing. For three weeks, Sam has stared at the faces of the ten men who waited out the end of the world with him. For three weeks, he watched short rations and stoic grief etch new lines around their eyes while their haggard beards grew in and hid the tightness of their mouths. Sam does not think he would know his own face any more, but theirs he could identify by touch should he suddenly be struck blind. They need him, depend on him to keep up, to hold his own, to carry on. And so, compelled by that need, he does, from obligation, from love. In return, Sam knows that they have his back. If he should falter, someone will be there to prop him back up and push him forward. Children can also compel action from the depths of despair through need, obligation and love. But if children are all you have, when you fall, they are often too small and too weak to catch you.

John had recognized his fall in time to scramble for the only support system he had left. And if it meant leaving his children behind for a time to serve the needs of the Corps, better that than to lose them forever to a black implosion of despair. It saddens Sam that the leash of his and Dean's love was not quite enough to pull his father along, but here at the end of the world, Sam thinks he can forgive him for it. The horrible irony is that now that Sam has something he wants to say to his old man, something decent for once, the only person who could have told him where Dad had settled down blew up in Cuba.

The gravel changes to pavement beneath his boots and Sam realizes he has almost reached the highway. He fiddles with his field radiation meter, records the reading which is reassuringly low, and sets the yellow box in the middle of the road to pick up on his way back. He doesn't want to hassle with it while scouting out the road.

The line of barb wire fencing that lined the highway burnt down with everything else except for a few metal posts. It makes it harder to pick out the road beneath the ashy snow, but once his eyes catch the smooth line of it, it is easy to see that it is empty.

Sam walks over the cattle grate and out to the middle of the highway, right up to where the bits of the yellow line peak through the ash and snow when the wind blows just right. He looks north first, towards Wall, and when he turns to look south, there is a man on the highway with him. Smooth and slick as any old west gunslinger, Sam frees his pistol from his thigh holster and aims it at the stranger's heart.

The man has done nothing, but, onerous though he may have found learning them at the time, Sam remembers his father's lessons. The most important was to always trust your gut and his says there is something wrong, something dangerous, about this man.

At first glance, he looks like any old man, clad in the standard blue jeans, cowboy boots, layered flannels and cowboy hat with grey sideburns poking out. But he is too clean, the red of his shirt is clean and vibrant against the gray and no beard dusts his face. He appeared out of nowhere, but the only place to hide where Sam wouldn't have seem him from yards away is the drainage ditch, and he should have been filthy if he had hidden there. But there he stands, the cleanest thing for miles and far too unconcerned about the gun aimed in at him for Sam's comfort.

As if reading his mind, the man slowly raises his hands in the universal sign of surrender, but there is a mocking tilt to the set of his shoulders that sets Sam's teeth on edge. He keeps the gun aimed and his finger flat along the trigger guard as the stranger slowly comes closer until they are within easy speaking distance. One of the innocuously raised hands push the brim of the cowboy hat up and for the first time, their eyes meet.

Sam gasps and takes an involuntary step back, finger tensing around the trigger. But a lifetime of training and the horror of killing an unarmed man, even one who makes his skin crawl so bad his bones itch, keeps Sam from firing. People shouldn't have eyes that color, that startling, sulfurous yellow, but it could have been a trick of the light, a small break in the clouds letting the sun shine through for just an instant. It could be the crazy nightmares he's had for the past weeks are making him see things. So he forces himself to look again, to meet the stranger's eyes.

They are brown, an ordinary light brown. Sam shifts in his stance, uneasy and uncertain of his own senses, and changes his target to a less immediately lethal belly shot. He doesn't completely lower the .38 though, because now the man his openly mocking him, a snide smile plastered all over his face, and it's starting to piss Sam off.

Still grinning, the man slowly lowers his hands until they fall loosely to his sides, but Sam keeps his eyes on the man's face. He sees the instant—between one blink and the next—when his eyes flip from brown to gold. Gold like the eyes watching him in his dreams. The gun moves up, quick as lightening to draw a line from barrel to right between those freak show eyes. The smile doesn't falter, doesn't twitch.

The wind rises suddenly, a loud howl of air that sends the snow and ash swirling in a circle around their place in the crossroads, penning them into an ethereal cage of gray and white. The air quiets abruptly, the wind dying as quickly as it came.

Into the silent still air, the yellow-eyed man says, "Hello, Sammy."

—the end—

  
| [Master Post at DW](http://sistabro.dreamwidth.org/12425.html) | [References at DW](http://sistabro.dreamwidth.org/11807.html) | 

**Author's Note:**

> So, first off, thanks to my wonderful artist [sleepwalker1015](sleepwalker1015.livejournal.com), who not only made awesome art, but also stepped up as a beta. Also, a big thank you to [creepylicious](creepylicious.livejournal.com), who also braved the terrors of my early drafts. Finally, massive thanks to the [spn_j2_bigbang](community.livejournal.com/spn_j2_bigbang) mods for making this challenge actually work.
> 
> The next thing I would like to do is offer up my sincere apologies for all the things I got wrong. I did my research to the best of my ability given the time and resource restrains of this challenge, but this story is set twenty to thirty years before I was born, I have never been to Cuba, and I don't know any Cubans that I would feel comfortable admitting I write fanfic to.
> 
> I could say a lot about this story, like how it originally was just going to be a AU pilot rewrite, that would involve Dean on a road trip through Vegas on Halloween. But, let's leave it at this, I have popped my bigbang cherry and I had a good, if stressful, time doing it. I hope you enjoyed the story and concrit is, as always, welcomed.


End file.
